Sir Fred Goodwin ‘found in France’

The News of the World claims to have discovered the whereabouts of Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The paper's intrepid reporters say they have tracked him down to a luxury hideaway in the hills behind the Cote d'Azur.

An aerial photo shows a large provencal mas or farmhouse, with a suitably enormous pool, outbuildings and clay tennis court, nestling in several hectares of grounds, just the ticket for a man with a £700,000-a-year pension.

Neighbours say they rarely see the ex-banker himself, but that they often see Lady Goodwin and the couple's two children zipping about in a Mercedes E320.

"She's not shy in making herself known," one neighbour informed the NoW. "She's always dressed in black with designer sunglasses, like an overweight WAG, chain-smoking and knocking back booze."

Where exactly the house is, the NoW won't say, "because the winding road there simply couldn't cope with the traffic jam". But it is apparently not far from Cannes and handy for one of the region's many golf courses - some compensation for the man who had hoped to join St Andrews but, as The First Post reported recently, was no longer considered to be an ideal member having led RBS to the verge of bankruptcy, requiring the state to inject £20bn to prop it up.

Sir Fred could be renting any number of spacious spreads in the area owned by rock stars, African dictators and gangsters. Speaking of which, if he ever gets online these days, he will no doubt have seen a recent report in the Scottish papers that he has been discovered to be a cousin of Grant Mackintosh, one of Scotland's most notorious underworld bosses.

A source told the Sunday Mail: "Sir Fred and Grant don't know each other personally but they do know they're related. Grant's family were well respected in Paisley and he was the only one to go off the rails growing up.

"Until Sir Fred's role in the demise of RBS, Grant always thought he was the only black sheep in the family. He has told people he's proud to be related to Sir Fred."

Mackintosh is nicknamed 'Mr P' for his hold on the drugs trade in Paisley. He served a seven-year term for drugs trafficking in 1985 and was jailed again for three years in 1993. His uncle Archie was Goodwin's grandfather ­ making the drug dealer and the money man first cousins once removed.